This course provides guidance to support you in reflecting on your moments of encounter with the sacred source/mystery within you with a goal of deepening insight into the meaning these experiences have for you now. It is designed to help you more fully embrace who you are, what your purpose/call/vocation is on this planet and to take a step closer to living creatively, and fully, into that call. We will make use of several texts, the primary ones being

Matthew Foxs work Creativity and Wayne Teasdales The Mystic Heart. Other suggested readings included at the end of this description and are encouraged. You may want to read from specific mystics of the various traditions for special projects.

Course Design

This eight-week course is designed to take the form of independent study along with several conversation threads being shared via email with fellow students and the instructor. Between reading and posting online, you will be writing, reflecting on your writing, and reading from the suggested texts. The instructor will check and comment on postings weekly. You can read and add posts at any time, with the caveat that no one monopolize the conversation. Please make room for all participants to post and keep your posts to the point of the conversation.

About Eileen Knoff

Eileen studied at Seattle University in pastoral ministry and transforming spirituality, earning an M.A. in 2001 and several post-masters certificates in subsequent years. She completed a doctorate of ministry from Global Ministries University in 2012, including studies in mysticism, feminism, Celtic spirituality, and new models of ordained ministry. She earned a B. A. from the University of Michigan in 1976 and an M.A. from the University of California (1980) in English and literature, and served as a teacher, writer, and editor before entering spiritual ministry.

Eileen founded Brigid’s Circle as an online contemplative and compassionate conversation with roots in Celtic spirituality in 2008. The group later migrated to Facebook where they now share contemplative and compassionate spiritual conversation. Eileen founded and co-facilitates an interspiritual gathering called Brigid’s Table, in Kirkland, Washington, which currently meets monthly.

Eileen was ordained in 2011 by friends and colleagues who are part of diverse denominations and multiple faith traditions in Seattle. This ordination received the affirmation from both CORPUS and the Progressive Christian Alliance (PCA) and people from diverse Catholic reform groups. She remains an active member of the PCA, and CORPUS, which describes itself as a faith community affirming an inclusive priesthood rooted in a reformed and renewed Church.

In 2011 she published a collection of reflections, including her own, called Seasoning the Soul. The book takes readers on a contemplative journey through the year by way of the Celtic calendar and a Celtic spiritual perspective on life and death and their integration. She is currently working on a collection of her own poetry and hopes to craft a memoir of her experience as an evolving Catholic. A working title for that story is Dark Graces.

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